


Start Again

by pjstillnoon



Category: The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: F/M, Season 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-24
Updated: 2015-04-27
Packaged: 2018-03-25 12:39:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3810742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pjstillnoon/pseuds/pjstillnoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alternate ending to Election Night II where Mackenzie leaves before the end of broadcast and Will doesn't propose.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cloe](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Cloe).



_Will starts to walk away. “Like I said, if I ever thought there was a chance you'd find out–”_

_“You just told me!” Mac exclaims and he turns to look at her, his face contrite, as if now, just now, he’s all of a sudden realised exactly what he’s done to her. Just how much he’s hurt her (and he doesn’t like it) and how much of an idiot he is for playing such a stupid game (and he doesn’t like that either). They watch each other across the room for a moment, Will’s demeanour guilty and apologetic._

_“I brutally hurt you and that's a fact,” Mackenzie speaks again. “And facts don't change. But in my_ lifetime _,” here she pauses to emphasise her point. She stares straight at him as she says, “I've never done it intentionally.”_

_Will presses his lips together, looks away, then back at her. “I’m sorry,” he says softly and he really,_ really _, means it._

_Mac nods, she manages a smile, an ‘oh well’ kind of expression. She scrapes her phone off the ledge and heads for the door. “Recap the house and then we’ll look at Colorado when we come back,” she instructs and leaves._

 

**********

 

It seems they can’t stop hurting each other.

Mackenzie sighs as she goes back to the control room. It all just feels inevitable. She and Will are a disaster and that’s the end of it. And that’s literally the end of it because she’s been given the sack so in three days (the end of the week, she’ll give them that) she will be leaving; the end of her career then, is also foreseeable, once Dantana files. She wishes she could go now. At least, just go home. But she has to finish the broadcast and they haven’t announced the presidency yet, so there’s a ways to go; it’s going to be a long night. She’s quiet though, and it’s difficult to look at Will, even through a monitor; at least she knows he can’t see her and she doesn’t talk to him unless she has to. During the breaks she stays in the control room, and he mercifully stays in the studio.

It feels like someone has taken a parisienne scoop and carved out her insides. It’s worse than feeling hollow, because as well as feeling empty, she stings around the edges. And she’s suddenly overwhelmingly tired. Exhausted. The Dantana/Genoa suit is bad enough without also knowing how completely Will despises her, resents her, _hates_ her. Buying the ring, that’s not punishment. That’s not Brian hanging around the newsroom in her face, reminding her of what she did. It’s not having Will work thirty feet from her every day, stringing her along, while she hopefully wonders if he could find it in his heart to forgive her, if she could just show him that she’s sorry.

Buying the ring as a joke, the message is loud and clear: Fuck you Mackenzie.

He had to know it would crush her heart.

As the clock clears one forty-five in the morning Mackenzie feels the need to cry uncontrollably. She looks over at Don, his station still covered in papers. He’s talking to Elliott, his back to the bank of monitors, but his attention focused on his job. Mackenzie gets to her feet. She’s zoned out of much of the rest of the broadcast anyway and figures no one will question it much if she requests Don take over and she go home. He doesn’t. He gives her a nod, gives her upper arm a brief tap. He tells her to get some sleep. They know what this week has done to her. Everyone knows what this week has done to her.

_You look like you were grown in an environment where it’s dark and damp._

That really says a lot.

She should have seen it earlier.

Mackenzie leaves the headset, doesn’t even bother to tell Will she’s going, and goes to her office to get her bag. She thanks the staff she sees on her way there for a good show, and more people on her way out of the bullpen, but she doesn’t want to cause a scene; she doesn’t want Will to see her departing, not with the desk turned the other way, looking out into the bullpen. She just doesn’t want to see Will; can’t stand to hear his voice right now either. She slips around the edges, and out into the night.

Her apartment is dark and cold when she gets in. She turns up the heat a few notches while kicking her shoes off by the door. She dumps her bag and keys wherever they land, walks through the dim rooms to the bathroom, already undressing, tossing her clothes to the floor, and steps straight into a hot shower, letting her clothes lay where they’re discarded.

_You’re the most attractive woman I have ever seen in real life._

How could he? How could he say that and have the ring be a practical joke? Ugh, and the way he said it, ‘sorry, but the ring was just a practical joke’. So casual. She means nothing to him. Absolutely nothing. All those other little glimmers, the ‘nobody in his right mind would risk losing you’ and the ‘I’m not just saying this because I’m high’. She doesn’t know what they were, probably more messing with her, stringing her along and giving her hope only to dash it and humiliate her at the end. She’s surprised he didn’t tell her about the ring in front of everyone else. That would have really twisted that knife.

Did he ever really love her? Would the ring have been a joke back then? Maybe he didn’t have one six years ago, but was it on his mind to ask? Was that something he wanted? Did he even ever really love her?

She shuts the water off and pulls a towel from the wall, wrapping it around herself, and burying her face into the soft terry cloth. She wonders where the tears have gone. She was so sure she was going to cry. She goes to her bedroom, pulls on clean pyjamas, and gets into bed. Aside from the bathroom light, she hasn’t turned any others on, and she lays in her bed, the cover to her chin, in the dark, thinking about what she’s going to do next. She wonders if Will has told Charlie he fired her (or if Charlie’s wondering where the hell she is and why she’s gone home and if she should have given him the courtesy of explaining she’s out of her mind with fatigue and grief and that she couldn’t have done her job properly for the rest of the night. She definitely would have cried then). After Reece and Charlie squared off about the moral high ground (they’re not resigning and the Lansing’s aren’t firing them) she’s not sure what happened in regards to employment. Will certainly didn’t turn to her and retract. She’ll go home, to London. That was always her contingency if being in the States didn’t work out again. She might even give up the news. She’s for sure priced herself out of a job by now, even if someone bothers to give her a job after the Dantana suit gets filed. She wonders if one of her sisters would want a live-in nanny.

And then she bursts into tears.

 

**********

 

“Ok Will, we’re done. Wrap it up.”

Will startles when he hears Don’s voice in his ear instead of Mackenzie’s. He hopes the flinch wasn’t too visible on screen; he might be saved by the fact that the camera was on Sloan. He lets her finish her sentence this time, and then thanks their viewers for watching them, thanks the panel for being there, reaffirms President Obama was re-elected, and then says goodnight. The closing sequence plays and he tugs his earpiece out, pushes back his chair. The mood in the studio is subdued; it’s two in the morning and everyone is tired, but he feels energised by a need to know why Don was in his ear and not his own EP. He goes straight to the control room; it’s quiet in there too. Don is stacking papers and the techs are getting up from their panels, wary with fatigue.

“Where’s Mackenzie?” He asks.

Don looks up innocently. “I don’t know. I think she went home.”

Will leaves. He goes to check her office, brushes off whoever it was that was just trying to talk to him; Tess maybe. Her office is empty, and her bag is gone. So she probably has gone home. He takes out his phone as he goes to his office (a little part of him hoping she might be there instead, to ream him out about the ring again. What scares him is how calm she was about it. In the end. She calmly told him to stick it. That’s the scariest response from Mackenzie: a lack of one). He dials her number. It rings to voicemail. He hesitates but doesn’t leave a message. When she sees that he’s called, she’ll call him back.

He gets changed and goes home.

 

Despite being incredibly tired, Will sleeps fitfully. It’s Mackenzie, he knows. And it’s the ring. It’s the look on her face and the tone of her voice. He did wrong. Really wrong. He messed up. At six a.m. he thinks about calling her. At seven he does. Her phone rings to voicemail and he listens to the huskiness of her voice and _pines_ for her. He acts chivalrously every other time, offended when tabloids threaten to print stories smirking her name; assertive when it’s implied to him that she’s nothing but manipulative tits on legs, but he himself, when it’s time to face her, is a coward.

The cowardly lion.

Without a heart.

Knocked out of him by his father.

_I was the bully._

He doesn’t have to raise a fist to be able to belittle someone. To tear them down. To make them feel small, inferior, unloved. He’s apparently quite good at it with words alone; more of his old man than he might realise. Too much intelligence; sees too much.

At eight he leaves a message and asks her to call him back.

He spends a restless morning waiting for the call, constantly checking his phone to make sure it’s on, that it’s charged, that he has reception. He checks his email too, but there’s no communication from her whatsoever. It completely unnerves him. And he increasingly frets that she’s never going to speak to him again; his mind jumping to _worst case scenario_. Which is ridiculous, in practice, because ‘ever again’ is a long time (but isn’t that what he would have done to her if she hadn’t come to work at ACN?) He goes to the office early, just to see if she’s there. She isn’t. So he goes up to see Charlie.

The older man looks tired, but there’s still a glint to his eye and the first thing out of his mouth is a comment about the numbers for their election broadcast.

“Today has to be the one day I couldn’t give a fuck less about the numbers,” Will mutters and takes a seat unbidden in front of his boss’s desk.

Charlie stares at him. “What’s fucking wrong with you? You should be elate–”

“I fired Mackenzie last night,” Will says.

Charlie’s face blinks into surprise. “You what?”

“Yeah. She,” Will waves a hand to dismiss his own words: _she goaded me_. “We had a fight.”

“You fight all the time.”

“This one was different.”

“Un-fire her,” Charlie demands.

“I – I’m trying. She won’t answer her phone!”

“Try harder. Will, I know you have the contractual – You fucking un-fire her right now!” He slams a hand onto his desk top and Will actually jumps in response. “She is the _best_ thing that happened to News Night and I cannot let you let her go.”

“I’m trying!” Will says louder.

“She’s the best thing that happened to you too,” Charlie adds quietly.

“I know,” Will agrees, staring at his friend over the desk. “Something else happened.” He feels sick, but he tells the older man about the ring.

“What the fuck is wrong with you!” Charlie explodes, stalking around his desk. “A practical joke? Are you out of your mind?”

_Pretty much_ , Will thinks glumly while Charlie rants on, two feet away from him, about what a sweet girl Mackenzie is and how, yes, she might have done a shitty thing a while back but that it doesn’t warrant the crap Will just pulled.

“I know!” Will interrupts loudly getting to his feet and stalking away, to the window. “I’ve already spent the night in self-flagellation, but can we move on to how I’m going to fix this?”

“You have to apologise.”

“I did.”

“You have to do it again.”

“I’ll say I’m sorry until I’m blue in the face,” Will agrees. “But I don’t think it’s going to be enough this time. She won’t take my calls.”

“Maybe she’s asleep.”

Will blinks. “At? Is she coming to work today?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, she didn’t call you to say she’s not coming in?”

“I haven’t heard from her.”

Will feels like that’s suspicious. In fact, why didn’t she call Charlie herself and tell him that Will sacked her?

“She could be in by now,” Charlie says softly. “If she is coming in.”

Will starts for the door.

“Get down there!” Charlie needlessly instructs.

 

Pumped from his pep talk, Will goes straight to Mackenzie’s office. She’s not there. He’s not sure if she’s come in yet, or whether she’s coming at all. He’s heading for his office, thinking about calling to ask, when he notices the staff in the conference room. And Mackenzie is there too, standing at the head of the table, leaning over to write on a notepad. Will feels relieved and heads towards her. When he pushes into the conference room Mackenzie looks over at him briefly and then opens her mouth to continue whatever it was that she was saying.

“Can I talk to you a second?” Will interrupts.

“I’m in the middle of the rundown,” Mackenzie counters.

“Just a second,” Will pushes. “Aren’t you having the rundown a little early?” He frowns.

“Not sure if you noticed,” Mackenzie starts, her tone light. “But last night was kind of a big night and we have a lot to get through for tonight’s follow-up.”

Tess, Martin and Kendra, sitting opposite the door, facing Will, snicker.

“Sit down if you’re staying,” Mackenzie instructs. Will does, taking his place at the head of the table. He doesn’t listen to the meeting; couldn’t give a fuck less. He keeps trying to catch her eye; ends up dead staring her, but she avoids him. Not even obviously. She just never really looks at him when she’s glancing up and around the room; her eyes flicker _over_ him. It makes Will feel like he’s utterly invisible. The sense of foreboding grows.  

At the end of the meeting, everyone gets up to leave, and while Will tries to push his way through the crowd to get to Mackenzie, she slips out of the conference room. When he finally breaks free, he can’t see her in the bullpen. He goes to her office, but when he pulls open her door, he finds it empty. He tries his office; he did say he wanted to talk to her. It’s also empty. He calls up to Charlie’s assistant Millie, but she’s not there either. Maybe she left the building? Maybe she decided to enforce the bit where she was fired. In the middle of putting the show together? Not likely. If she was going to do it, she wouldn’t have come into the office today at all.

Will goes back to her office.

Fine, if she’s going to avoid him, then he’ll camp out and wait for her. Can wait all day.


	2. Chapter 2

Mackenzie finishes her meeting with graphics and goes back to her office. She pulls open the door and finds Will sitting there, opposite her desk, his blonde head bowed slightly. He looks over at her as she stands in the doorway, and for a second, he looks incredibly sad and tired (and she feels sorry for him, ready to fix whatever is bothering him). Then he blinks, and the moment passes, and she steels herself, walks around her desk and takes a seat. She doesn’t say anything and neither does he, so when she sits he’s just watching her and it makes her feel uncomfortable. She cried last night, and got angry, and this morning she was tired, but over it. And now, seeing him, having him sit there, she feels this awful weight settle in her stomach; she’s not over it. She doesn’t want to be here. She doesn’t want to see him or talk to him. She wonders at the wisdom of coming in to work today. It felt like the right thing to do. The adult thing. Or at least, the professional thing. But now she wants the earth to swallow her up so she can escape. She wishes she rang in sick. Or cashed in on the bit where she was sacked; she’s not under obligation to be here. It’s just that she wouldn’t do that to Charlie. Or land her work on Jim. Or the rest of the staff.

“I have no inclination to hear what you have to say,” Mackenzie starts.

Will’s eyebrows twitch up into surprise. “But I –”

“Don’t want to hear it Will. You said it last night and now we know where we stand with each other and I’m going to move on.”

Wow, it felt good saying that.

Will blinks at her. “You can’t.”

“I can too,” she says indignantly.

“Are you resigning?” He challenges, his blue eyes boring into her.

Mackenzie sits up straighter in her chair. “You _fired_ me last night, Will. Or did you forget that already? It means I’m not coming in on Monday. I’ll see out the rest of the week, to make sure handover is–”

“You’ll have to resign, because you’re not fired.”

“You–”

“End of the week. I can only fire you at the end of the week. Last night was only Thursday.” He gives a shrug. “So it didn’t count.”

“It didn’t count!” Mackenzie raises her voice. “Are you _fucking_ with me right now?”

“I’m not fucking with you.”

“You know what Will? Fuck you. I _am_ going to resign.”

He looks alarmed.

“We’re done, so what’s the point in staying?” She stands and Will mimics her, so they’re glaring at each other across her desk.

“The news?” Will offers quietly.

“Oh fuck the news,” Mackenzie gripes. “You don’t need me to do the news. They can do it just fine,” she gestures to the bullpen. “You can keep Jim, he knows what he’s doing. And he can probably handle you. I’m going to go and do something else,” she finishes loftily, walking around her desk.

“You’re going to quit the news?” Will asks her with disbelief, turning as she moves.

“Yeah. I’m going to London and I’m going to learn how to do manicures.”

“Jesus, Mackenzie, I said you were unfired,” Will cuts in. “You don’t have to leave.”

“Maybe I want to,” she tells him pointedly at her office door, one hand raised to push it open.

“Where are you going?”

“To see Charlie. If you won’t fire me, I’ll resign,” she pushes on the door.

Will takes a step after her. “You heard Reece and Charlie last night right? Having a pissing contest to see who was taking the moral high ground on us not resigning?” He starts to follow her as she walks to the door.

“Yeah, I heard that,” Mackenzie says lightly, pushing her office door further open and walking through it.

 

Will follows her up to Charlie’s office, which annoys her to no end, but he can’t help it. There is no way Charlie is going to accept her resignation, and it’s not so much that he wants to witness it, to assure himself that she’s going to stay, it’s just that he thinks there should be witnesses, so that she can assure herself that she’s going to stay. She has to stay. It’s _imperative_ that she stays. He can’t turn this around if she leaves. Certainly no chance if she goes to London. It doesn’t feel like an idle threat either. It feels like she’s really going to go to London. He knows her. She has that look in her eye. Stubbornly determined.  

“Good morning Ms McHale,” Charlie greets warmly, standing behind his desk, a folder in his hands. “And Mr McAvoy,” he adds when Will walks in closely behind Mackenzie. “What can I do for you this morning?

“I don’t know what _he’s_ doing here,” Mackenzie says, shooting a narrowed glance over her shoulder at Will. Charlie looks at him and Will spreads his hands in an open gesture, accompanied by a shrug (a valiant attempt to not take the blame for this, even though it is, entirely, his fault). “But I’m here to resign.”

“You can’t,” Charlie says bluntly, immediately; he knew she was coming.

“What?” Mackenzie startles. She blinks at him. “Yes I can.”

“You can’t. You signed a contract. You want to go after your contract ends, that’s your choice, but you’ve still got six months.”

Mackenzie stares at him, and he stares back at her, waiting. “Are you in cahoots with _him_?” She gestures over her shoulder at Will.

“No, we’re not in cahoots,” Charlie tells her gently. “Will? Get out.”

Will looks over at him, surprised.

“I’d like to have a conversation with Mackenzie.” He sits, doesn’t wait for Will to go, and gestures for Mackenzie to do the same, to take a seat. “Now,” he adds loudly when Will doesn’t move.

Will goes to the door reluctantly, suddenly fearful Charlie is actually in cahoots with Mackenzie, and that they’re going to somehow negotiate for Mackenzie to get out of her contract early. Or to move her to another show. He needs to have a conversation with her as well. She doesn’t look at him as he goes. And neither does Charlie.

 

**********

 

Will finds out Mackenzie’s gone home when he goes to the afternoon rundown and she’s not there. Even though he asks Jim, and everyone else several times, no one will tell him why or when, and he’s not sure if they’re being truthful when they say they don’t know, or covering for Mackenzie (he wouldn’t put it past them to take her side if it came down to dividing up their friends). He goes to see Charlie, to ask what happened, to demand to know what they talked about, but he’s out. He doesn’t answer his phone. Neither does Mackenzie, whose phone rings just twice before cutting to voicemail. Will goes back to his office stumped. And anxious. He feels his life slipping through his fingers, unravelling quickly, making him helpless and destitute.

What if she somehow talked Charlie into letting her resign? She could do that. He’s seen her make rousing speeches that convince the room (she would have had Northwestern eating out of her hand). What if she really does go to London? He can’t let her go to London. He gets up from his desk and heads out. He goes to her apartment, the first time he’s been there since she’s been back in New York, which somehow feels wrong, that he hasn’t come to her before in two years. He knocks at her door and stands impatiently, waiting for her to answer. He’s about to knock again when he hears the click of the lock. She opens the door. She’s changed, into jeans and a casual tee, her hair loose around her shoulders and she’s barefoot, her eyes are dark, looking up at him questioning, and for a second, his heart beats for her so hard and he’s urged to kiss her. Until she frowns.

“Will,” she sighs. “What do you want?” She keeps the door between them, a barrier, her body closed off.

“Can we talk?”

“No,” she says simply. “Now’s not a good time. Aren’t you supposed to be at work?”

“Aren’t you?” Will shoots back.

“I’m taking the day off,” she responds loftily.

“What did you talk to Charlie about?”

“None of your business.”

“Mac, can I come in?” Will finally asks.

“No Will. You can’t.”

“Mackenzie,” he almost whines.

“Say what you want to say and leave,” Mackenzie demands.

“I’m sorry, ok? I’m sorry about the ring.” He means it sincerely, but it comes out terse.

“You already said that.”

Will sighs. He didn’t think it would be easy, but he also didn’t think it would be this hard. He’s gotten arrogant, thinking she will hang around forever.

“Look, Will, can we just? Not? I don’t want to–”

“I do!”

“And I’m over it!” Mackenzie raises her voice, her dark eyes light up. She raises a hand in a stop gesture. “I don’t – let’s just see each other on Monday, ok?”

“Monday?” Will repeats hollowly.

“Yeah. Monday. I’ll be at work, on Monday. And we can,” she hesitates. “We can talk on Monday.”

“Monday?” Will says again.

“Yeah, Monday,” she confirms.

Will stands for a second, debating whether to push it, whether to tell her the rest of it or not, but in that fraction of time, she closes the door. He lets her close the door on him; dismissed. He stands for a second longer, surprised and realising that this is exactly what he did to her. Except, when she came to his door he didn’t answer it. He didn’t answer her calls or texts or emails, refused to let her in the door, quit work immediately so he never had to see her again. He felt so justified, and he was, but he can see now how she must have felt, being so completely shut out. And she hasn’t even done that to him, because she answered her door. She’s still willing to talk to him, even if right now she obviously wants some space.

He turns to go. Monday feels better than never but still, its five days away and that feels like such a long time. And she’s really angry with him. _Really_ angry. He’s never seen her that mad. As he goes back to the AWM building he figures he’s going to have to do something convincing to show her that he loves her, that he wants her, that he’s never going to hurt her again, if she’d just give him another chance. If she would just _listen_ to him. If she would just let him explain. He’s thinking differently now.

 

**********

 

What if she hates him?

 _She doesn’t hate you_ , he tells himself.

She said she was over it.

_But she doesn’t hate you._

Mackenzie doesn’t hate. She does angry really well. But a string of expletives doesn’t mean she holds a grudge either. More often than not, once she explodes, it’s all out there and she’s ok again. He holds it in; she lets it out. He figures by the end of the weekend she’ll have calmed down enough to talk with him, to listen to what he has to say, and hopefully, he can convince her that he actually really does love her, and that he’s done with all the petty shit and just wants to be with her. And that he’s sorry. About the ring, and about all the other hurtful things he’s done over the last two years to get back at her. Hopefully she hasn’t changed her mind after all and hopefully she isn’t over it, over him, or over the idea of them. Because he’s just jumped back on board and the notion that they’ve missed their chance (again?) makes him feel nauseated.

If she could just give him five minutes to explain…

She requested space but he’s not sure he can do it. He wants to tell her right now: _I’m in love with you_. His fingers itch to reach for his phone to call her. And after broadcast on Thursday night he’s tempted to take a cab to her apartment and try again at her door. He talks himself out of it: respect her space. He wonders what she’s thinking. He wonders if she’s going to act indifferently towards him on Monday. He wonders if she’ll talk to him before then, before they get to the office and everyone else is around, already witness to the soap opera of his life. Or situation comedy, depending on who’s looking at it.

At four in the morning he decides to go over there. By four fifteen he’s talked himself out of it. He tries and fails to distract himself. At four forty-five he starts walking to her apartment anyway. 


	3. Chapter 3

Will knocks on Mackenzie’s apartment door. His heart rate is high and he’s a little sweaty. His stomach feels jumpy and a muscle in his thigh twitches randomly. He just power walked to her apartment and leapt up the stairs, instead of waiting for the elevator, because he felt too impatient and restless. He waits a long time, accounting for her to get out of bed and come to the door, but there’s no answer, so he knocks again, louder. He steps back, then forth again, edgy. He starts knocking for a third time when the door pulls open. “Will!” Mackenzie hisses at him. She’s in pink pyjama bottoms and a dark blue tank top, her cheeks slightly flushed. “What are you doing?”

“I really need to talk to you.”

“Would you be _quiet_?” She grabs his hand and tugs him inside. “It’s quarter past five in the morning. I have neighbours!”

“Yeah, I know, sorry to wake you–”

“I wasn’t asleep.”

“I want to talk.”

“Will–”

“It can’t wait. It can’t wait until Monday,” he tells her urgently.

“Fine,” she sighs, gestures that he should go on, and finally lets go of his hand to cross her arms over her chest (if she hadn’t folded her hands under her elbows, he would have tried to take them back).

Will takes a deep breath, his heart still pounding. She’s so beautifully angry at him. He’s thought about it, what he’s going to say, his speech, and he thinks he has to start big, and with the most important part: “I love you.”

“What?” She asks alarmed, her eyes wide with the shock, her arms dropping to her sides again.

“I love you Mackenzie. And I’m sorry for the ring. It was– I was so hung up on trying to get back at you– if I could just even the score– I thought that that would make me feel better and I could move on. But it just hurt you and– I’m so sorry I hurt you. I don’t ever want to do that again. I’m _not_ going to do that ever again.”

She stares at him, somewhere between a frown and shock.

“And the ring. I–” He takes it out of his pocket. Just the ring. He holds it towards her, pinched between this thumb and index finger, the diamond catching a shiver of light from the kitchen windows, open to the streetlight. “I want you to have it. It’s for you. I– Will you marry me?”

“What?” Mackenzie repeats, her mouth hanging slightly open now.

“I love you and I don’t ever want to be without you. I want to make you happy. And I’m sorry, for all of it, the last two years, I’ve been an idiot, and will you marry me?”

There’s a moment of silence in which Will realises how quickly he’s breathing. He opens his mouth to keep going, repeating it again if he needs to.

“No.”

Will stops with his mouth open, closes it, tries again. “What?”

“No, Will. You can’t just– the last _two years_ have been–”

“I know,” he says tightly.

“And you were a complete–”

“Yeah,” he agrees, staring at her, trying to keep it together through the inevitable push back. She said no, but he’s trying not to freak the fuck out.

“And then you come in and tell me that you love me after all and want me to _marry you_?” She waits for an answer.

“Do you still love me?” Will asks instead and it throws her. “I never stopped loving you. You’re right. I’ve loved you from the day we met and I’ve never stopped.”

Mackenzie blinks at him. “Then why–”

“You broke my heart. And I wanted to break yours. So you would know how it feels. And I figure you do. Because you came back, and you’ve been right here for two years putting up with all kinds of– for two years waiting for me–” He waves the ring around as he gestures with his hands.

“You knew?”

“To get over it and come back to you and I have. And I’m here. I’m sorry for the ring. I’m sorry for Brian and the rest of it. I had every right to be angry, but I shouldn’t have punished you. That was wrong.”

She looks away, to the side, fidgets where she stands, uncomfortable. He reaches for her then, placing his hands on her bare arms (her skin is cold), just above her elbows, holding off until now because he’s trying to respect her request for space, but god, if he can’t touch her, convince her, if he can’t…

“I got the ring for you. It’s yours. You can wear it or,” he gestures with it, waves it around the entranceway of her apartment, because she still hasn’t really invited him inside, while he tries to find the words. “Sell it–”

“No Will. I’m not taking the ring–”

“I’m not returning it. So you can–” he gestures it at her.

“Right now,” Mackenzie finishes, putting up her hand in a stop gesture. “But you can give it to me in about three to six months.”

Will shuts his mouth quickly. He can feel his heart pounding in his chest. “What?” He asks tentatively.

Mackenzie straightens where she stands, shakes the hair back from her face, raises her chin; defiant. “I’m not saying _no_. I’m saying _not yet_. We need to… figure things out. And I’m still _mad_ at you,” she glares at him. “But you can ask me again in three months.”

Will blinks at her. So it’s gone from ‘no’ to ‘not yet’, and from six months to three. He’ll take that as progress. “I will,” he says, sounding a little desperate.

“All right then.”

They stare at each other a moment.

“Goodbye Will,” Mackenzie says.

“You’re asking me to leave?”

“Yeah.”

“After I said I love you?”

“Yeah.”

“After we almost got engaged?”

Mackenzie gives a huff of a laugh and reaches out to open the door. “I’ll see you on Monday Will.”

“Oh now that’s just cruel,” Will complains. “You’re still going to make me wait until Monday?”

“You don’t seem to be able to follow that instruction,” Mackenzie leans on the open door, looking up at him adoringly, making his mouth feel dry.

“How about I take you out to dinner tonight?” Will asks softly.

“You assume I want to eat a meal with you after the crap you pulled two days ago?” She asks lightly.

Will gestures the ring at her. “Can I pick you up after the show?”

“Put that away.”

“You’re seriously not going to take it?”

“Not yet. But you should put it in your pocket so you don’t get mugged on your way home. That thing has to have cost–”

“Quarter of a million dollars,” Will supplies. Mackenzie gapes at him a little. “I wanted something nice.”

“To prank me with?” She asks disbelievingly.

Will’s mouth draws into a line and he scowls. He doesn’t like to hear that, doesn’t want to be reminded, but he deserves it. He watches her a moment, thinks about arguing some more. Thinks about insisting that she doesn’t kick him out in this instant. Thinks about contending that she agree right now to marry him (but she kind of has). He thinks that maybe, all things considered, this is the best outcome. “Ten?” He asks again.

Mackenzie gives a short nod. “Ten,” she agrees, almost a whisper.

Will stares at her some more. She’s so beautiful. “I really do love you.”

“I know,” she says simply.

He goes to step through the doorway, the gap just big enough for him to fit, but he feels her fingers on his arm, gripping tightly, and he stops, looks back at her. She shifts to grab a fistful of the front of his shirt and pulls him down so she can kiss him. She’s soft against him, pushing up on her toes, her body balancing against his. His arm wraps around the low of her back, holding her tightly against him and he leans into the kiss, moves his mouth against hers. She goes with it, kissing him back, shifting her arms to wrap them around his shoulders and neck.

They break apart and Mackenzie repositions to press her cheek against his. He can hear her breathing rapidly as he holds her and then she whispers in his ear that she loves him too. He gives a slight groan of relief and wraps her up tighter in his arms, squeezing until he can feel her ribs struggling to expand to breathe. He loosens his grip and plants another kiss on her. He brushes his lips against hers again, then shifts to her neck, places a kiss gently beneath her ear, breathes in the scent of her and feels the way she shivers from the contact. “Thank god,” he murmurs and she gives a slight laugh.

 

**********

 

After broadcast, Will leaves the building immediately. He changes first, then goes home, changes again. He made reservations for dinner and when he couldn’t stand it and text Mackenzie to see if she still wanted to go out with him, she said no. She was going to cook, and he should come over. He cancelled the reservations. He puts on grey trousers, a medium blue shirt and a black jacket. Then he thinks maybe he should wear a tie. But maybe that’s too formal. They’re not going out to the restaurant anymore. He checks his watch, hesitates over the tie, and sees the ring box sitting on his dresser. He puts it in his pocket, and then texts Mackenzie that he’s on his way.

He takes a cab this time, so he doesn’t arrive all sweaty, but his heart is still pounding and he feels the nervous twinge of his stomach. It’s been a long day and he’s spent most of it thinking about her, convincing himself that the conversation this morning _did_ happen and that she _does_ loves him. She said ‘not yet’, and that she loves him, and so he has to have hope that they can work this out; he believes her. He doesn’t know what that’s going to involve but he suspects Mackenzie will just tell him, and he’ll do whatever it is that she wants, what she tells him to do. He’s good at following instructions (most of the time) and really, in this case, he’ll just do what he’s told, lest he lose her for good.

Of course, she’s also had the day to think about it, about them and what happened this morning, so he’s not sure what he’s about to walk in to.

With another nervous pang of his gut, he knocks on her door. She opens it a moment later, in a little black dress and killer heels, her hair is up in a simple ponytail, her eye makeup dark and Will stares; the sight of her is an ‘oof’ to the gut. She looks stunning, and she dressed up for _him._ He’s still staring when she calls to him, “ _Will_.”

He snaps back to attention.

“Hi,” Mackenzie says with a smile.

“Hi,” he echoes. She’s standing well to the side, trying to welcome him in, and he finally gets his legs working. He suddenly realises he came empty handed and thinks about giving her the ring in lieu of a bottle of wine.

“Ok,” Mackenzie takes his wrist to stop him from walking away completely, as he steps over the threshold. “How do I look?”

“Incredible,” Will automatically responds, taking her in again. He shifts his hand to grip her fingers.

Mackenzie smiles, pleased and then kicks her shoes off. “Thank god, I haven’t worn those in ages, they’re killing my feet.” She pads barefoot to the kitchen, tugging Will along behind her. He checks out her ass. Very nice. And oh, he’s just spotted the little whisps of her hair that have fallen out of her ponytail. He wants to kiss her exposed neck. He just wants to kiss her. He feels hot.

“Beer or wine?” Mackenzie asks as she rounds the kitchen bench, letting his hand go.

“Whatever you’re drinking,” Will answers, standing where she’s left him.

“Wine,” Mackenzie says, and reaches for the bottle. “Dinner will be ready in a minute.”

“Ok,” Will says as she pours red into a full bellied glass. She gives it to him and reaches for her own.

“What shall we drink to?” She asks lightly, watching him. She seems very at ease with this evening, which, to be honest, is helping Will feel the same way. Sure, she blew him off, sort of, this morning, but she appears to be ok now.

“Uh,” Will stumbles. “To picking up where we left off?” He raises his glass to meet hers.

Mackenzie frowns, lowers her glass to her hip and Will feels his heckles rise: what has he done wrong now? “No,” she shakes her head. “We can’t pick up where we left off.”

“Why not?” Will challenges, feeling prickly, hearing ‘I’m not getting back together with you’.

Mackenzie looks up at him. “We can’t pick up where we left off Will. That’s not going to work.”

Will looks down at her, the prickly heat making his chest feel tight. But there’s something in Mackenzie’s gaze that cools him as they stand for a moment, watching each other. “How is it going to work?” Will asks softly, when he realises she’s waiting on him. Because really, he’d do anything to be with her at this point.

“Well,” Mackenzie starts. She licks her lips and his eyes are drawn to his mouth. “I think that we can’t pick up where we left off when it’s been _five years_ , since we were last together, which is longer apart than we were together.”

Will feels abashed. “You want to start over?”

“I think that, maybe, we could start again,” she looks up at him hopefully. “I think it’s going to take some time, but we could start again.”


	4. Chapter 4

Will doesn’t know what start again means, but they figure it out as they go along as somewhere between dating again to get to know each other again, but still knowing too much about each other. Mackenzie sleeps on the right side of the bed in her apartment, but on the left in his. He’s met her parents and she already knows that he sees a therapist. She knows what kind of toothpaste he likes. He sees the scar on her stomach and makes her tell him the story (but he already knows why she went to Afghanistan in the first place), and he explains he wasn’t really trying to kill himself, but an overdose did feel half appealing; all of which scares him. He confesses to his mistakes regarding Brian and she’s already admitted to hers and then they vow to never speak his name again.

They talk about the ring. But Mackenzie still refuses to take it. Was he genuinely in love with her back then? _Yes._ Was he seriously thinking about marrying her? _Yes._ Does he honestly forgive her for cheating? _No, he’s not sure he does, but it just doesn’t matter anymore, does it?_ He’s not angry and he doesn’t think about it and he’s reached the point of moving on; he’s just gotten past it. Perhaps that is forgiveness, he doesn’t know, but he feels good when he’s with her (even when sometimes they still yell and cry and talking feels uncomfortable) and he honestly doesn’t think about Brian, cheating, or punishing her. What he thinks about is being good enough for her; he has to earn her back. She’s already done that. Earned her way back to being with him.

They have other hard conversations, like why he bought the ring as a prank, and then why he told her about it being a joke, and what sometimes felt like a compulsive need to see her in pain. He goes to Habib with the same question, and it’s less about ‘fix me’ and more about ‘help me to be better’. He tells her what the voicemail said and it makes her livid for a moment, to know they wasted all that time, but there’s nothing either of them can do about that now, and Will thinks it might have worked out for the best this way. He would have been less interested in talking openly had he not just about ruined it, and realised very nauseatingly just what he could lose, probably for good. 

After about two weeks Will thinks Mackenzie has stopped being mad at him, and god love her, he considers himself lucky, and grateful, and he’s a little in awe of her, that she can do that. It took him two years of being petty, and her two weeks of facing it. She’s the same, but different and he learns how to mould around her again, lets her show him how it’s done. She’s grown and matured and she’s smarter about this now than he is. He tries hard to catch up.

They dig through all the shit, tossing it aside, facing big problems and making them smaller together, until there’s nothing left and they find themselves in a good place. A place where they make love and have a conversation that doesn’t inevitably fall into terse tones. Love alone isn’t enough for a marriage and even though Will knows he loves Mackenzie (and that she loves him too), always will, hasn’t stopped, he understands more as the weeks go by that it’s much more complicated than that. He didn’t know that two, four, six years ago. And even though this has been, at times, a completely horrific and painful journey, maybe they’re both better off for it.  

When the three months deadline looms Will starts to feel nervous again. He wonders if they are ready for marriage and if Mackenzie is expecting him to propose again. They haven’t gotten to that conversation, talking about their future, because they’ve spent three months talking about the past. He’s not even sure he’s ready for it. But it occurs to him the ring is really just a symbol of his intention to commit and he’s sure about that, and his intention to be with her for the rest of his life, and he was ready to do that four years ago. He writes it out on a yellow legal pad, when he’s supposed to be writing that night’s copy, then transfers it to an index card, and keeps it in his drawer with the ring that he’s taken to transferring between his apartment, her apartment and his office; he likes having it near. It represents something awful, but also something hopeful; the hope wins out more and more.

Will volunteers to stay at her place that night, and she accepts easily enough. When they go to bed Will makes sure he stays awake until she goes to sleep and then slips out of bed again. He gets the ring from his bag and pops open the box, placing it on her nightstand, in front of her phone (because that’s the first thing she reaches for in the morning), and then places the index card so its propped between the ring in the bed of the box and the lid. He hopes it’ll be romantic enough, and sincere enough, and that she will actually notice it there and not knock it to the floor.

Then he gets back into bed and will’s himself to sleep, despite the nerves.

He’s not sure he could take it if she says no again.

 

**********

 

Mackenzie wakes because she thinks she hears her phone chime. She orientates herself in bed, finds herself facing Will, who’s facing her. Their knees are both drawn up so they’re mirror image (though Mackenzie does it because it’s comfortable and Will does it so his feet don’t hang off the end of her bed) and his hand is half on her arm, like maybe he was holding her in the night. She turns over carefully so she doesn’t jostle him awake, and reaches for her phone. Her fingers knock against something else though. She sits herself up, peering in the gloom, confused. There’s a dark shape on the nightstand – oh god, it’s the ring. Mackenzie sits and grabs it. The index card topples to the floor. She gets out of bed to pick it up, and then because she can’t read it in the dark, and because she doesn’t want to wake Will just yet, she takes it into the other room to read.

 

**********

 

Will’s dreaming he’s at the anchor desk, but the prompter is typed in a language he doesn’t understand and he’s trying to hold off the panic while he vamps as much of the story as he can remember from earlier when he wrote his copy, while someone is hopefully trying to fix the problem. And he can’t hear his EP.

“Will.”

He startles awake. Mackenzie is leaning over him, shaking his shoulder. “Will,” she says again.

“Hey,” he mumbles.

“Yes.”

“Huh?”

“Yes,” Mackenzie repeats and presses a kiss to his mouth. “I’m ready to do this too.”

It takes Will a second longer to realise what she’s talking about. The ring. Getting married. He pushes himself to lean on an elbow, grinning already. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah I’m sure,” she says softly, placing a hand to his jaw. Her eyes are crinkled as she smiles, and even in the darkness, Will can see her joy. “I thought you weren’t going to ask me. I thought you were going to wait for the six months, that maybe you weren’t ready –”

“I’m ready. I didn’t forget and I’m totally ready.”

“Me too,” Mackenzie whispers.

“Mackenzie, I love you, I–”

“Me too,” she repeats. “I know, me too.” She kisses him again, pressing her lips against his, and then drops down to the pillow and he places a hand around the curve of her rib and shifts in so he’s closer. She draws her arms around his neck and pulls him down into a hug. “Wait, there’s one more thing.”

“Hm?” Will pulls back. He feels her press something hard against his chest. The ring box. “You don’t like the ring? We can take it back and you can have whatever you like –”

“I love the ring. I just wondered if you wanted to do the honours?” She wiggles the fingers of her left hand at him.

Will takes the box and takes the ring out, a little awkward while he’s leaning on his arms so he doesn’t crush her. But he manages to get the ring out and she gives him her hand and he slides the ring over her knuckles, his heart beating hard and their bodies hot beneath the bed covers. The ring fits perfectly. Mackenzie kisses him again, a hard press of her mouth against his, her fingers clutched in the t-shirt he wore to bed. He can feel her smiling against his lips.

“Want to come fool around with your fiancé in the shower?” She asks against his jaw.

“Fuck yes,” Will answers gruffly.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading. And thank you to those who left a comment or kudos. Feedback is appreciated :)


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